Question i5-2500k 100% usage

[Xenone]

I recently stopped playing CSGO and started playing different games, I have played competitive CSGO for over 3 years on my PC and never had any lag issues or such since CSGO is not demanding. I have recently started playing Rust, Fortnite and PUBG and I get weird freezes from time to time. It's hard for me to tell if my FPS drop to 0 or if the system freezes up but I get weird freezes about every 5 minutes for 1 or 2 seconds and it's annoying for most part. For example in Fortnite, I'm running the game at 120 FPS in 1080p on high settings, tried changing the settings to medium and it made no difference to the freezeing up problem. My CPU is at 100% usage basically all the time, sometimes it will drop to 90% while my GPU is around at 70%-80% usage. My temps are fine. I'm not sure what the issue is. My specs:
i5 2500k (OC'ed to 4.8Ghz)
Asus Strix GTX 970 4GB (OC'ed by +150Mhz on both GPU and VRAM)
4x4GB HyperX Fury DDR3 RAM
120GB Kingston SSD
1TB Toshiba HDD
750W CoolerMaster PSU
(CPU is watercooled, max temps around 65C, GPU air cooled with my temps around 55C)

Tried closing everything in the background except the game + AfterBurner and I still get the issue. Fortnite recommended requirements are i5 2.8Ghz + GTX 660 which I basically double those specs so I don't think that's the issue.

 

[Big_Bad_E]

CPU/GPU usage at 100% is normal, that means your using all the CPU/GPU power you have.

 

[boju]

Cpu running 100% is normal but not ideal and can degrade performance quite a bit.

Use Afterburner or Nvidia Inspector to cap your fps down to 45~60 and let us know what happens to cpu usage.

The cpu needs to prepare frames for the gpu. In today's games with more going on + frame preparation can overwhelm cpus.

Watch this to understand what i mean

 

[Karadjgne]

CS:GO is an older generation game. It was coded back when quad core/thread cpus were at their hay-day and only uses 2-3 threads at any particular time. So it's relatively easy on usage on a i5-2500. Swap games into something more current and you start running into 8 thread optimized games, even older games like BF4 or GTA:V. 4 threads is an absolute minimum, 6 is better and 8 is best.

You have a 4 thread cpu. It's going to have upto 100% usage on newer, cpu intensive games designed around 8 thread usage.

And that's just thread count. That's not taking into consideration IPC, instructions per clock. Newer cpus have higher IPC. Newer games are written on newer pc's and designed to run at a certain pace for good fps. Without at least matching that, fps tanks. The cpu can't pre-render as many frames in a second, can't send them to the gpu, or get them on screen. Gets to the point that playability is miserable.

Cpu/gpu usage at 100% is absolutely NOT normal. Usage, as seen in Task Manager, is totally misleading. A cpu/gpu will always work at 100% ability, but only use a certain % of its resources (threads, bandwidth etc) to get that 100%. That's usage. If a game code only requires a quad core cpu to use 2 threads, it'll run those threads at 100% ability, but will not need to use 100% of both of the cores bandwidth to do so. Looking at a program like MSI Afterburner, you'd notice per core usage at 90/90/30/30 (the 30's being windows usage, Cortana, game bar etc) and that averages out to 60% usage, which is what you see in TM. If you are seeing 100% usage, there's no room for movement, no room for more intensive scenes, no room for massive physX explosions, so fps tanks as a result, mouse movement causes stuttering etc. If you are getting 100% in both those cores, you are stuck just the same, the game code states 2 threads, doesn't make allowances for a third threads use, so the same 100% usage detriments apply.

There's only 3 reliable cures for 100% usage on a quad.

1. Change the game for a different one that's less cpu demanding.
2. Hunt the web for possible microcode fixes or patches that will streamline instruction set usage or otherwise lower the actual demands on the cpu.
3. Upgrade, either to an i7 of that generation (or whichever gen fits the mobo) or upgrade platform to a cpu that can handle the thread/IPC needs with room to spare.

Anything else is a band-aid that'll get ripped to shreds by the next game you try.

 

[Xenone]

Cpu running 100% is normal but not ideal and can degrade performance quite a bit.

Use Afterburner or Nvidia Inspector to cap your fps down to 45~60 and let us know what happens to cpu usage.

The cpu needs to prepare frames for the gpu. In today's games with more going on + frame preparation can overwhelm cpus.

Watch this to understand what i mean

Thanks for your input, I did as you said, played one game of PUBG with the same settings as I always do and took a screenshot of Afterburner graph afterwards and played excatly same game (same map, settings ect) but with FPS limited to 60 and took a screenshot of the graphs, here they are:

Spoiler: 120FPS

Spoiler: 60FPS Limit

CS:GO is an older generation game. It was coded back when quad core/thread cpus were at their hay-day and only uses 2-3 threads at any particular time. So it's relatively easy on usage on a i5-2500. Swap games into something more current and you start running into 8 thread optimized games, even older games like BF4 or GTA:V. 4 threads is an absolute minimum, 6 is better and 8 is best.

You have a 4 thread cpu. It's going to have upto 100% usage on newer, cpu intensive games designed around 8 thread usage.

And that's just thread count. That's not taking into consideration IPC, instructions per clock. Newer cpus have higher IPC. Newer games are written on newer pc's and designed to run at a certain pace for good fps. Without at least matching that, fps tanks. The cpu can't pre-render as many frames in a second, can't send them to the gpu, or get them on screen. Gets to the point that playability is miserable.

Cpu/gpu usage at 100% is absolutely NOT normal. Usage, as seen in Task Manager, is totally misleading. A cpu/gpu will always work at 100% ability, but only use a certain % of its resources (threads, bandwidth etc) to get that 100%. That's usage. If a game code only requires a quad core cpu to use 2 threads, it'll run those threads at 100% ability, but will not need to use 100% of both of the cores bandwidth to do so. Looking at a program like MSI Afterburner, you'd notice per core usage at 90/90/30/30 (the 30's being windows usage, Cortana, game bar etc) and that averages out to 60% usage, which is what you see in TM. If you are seeing 100% usage, there's no room for movement, no room for more intensive scenes, no room for massive physX explosions, so fps tanks as a result, mouse movement causes stuttering etc. If you are getting 100% in both those cores, you are stuck just the same, the game code states 2 threads, doesn't make allowances for a third threads use, so the same 100% usage detriments apply.

There's only 3 reliable cures for 100% usage on a quad.

1. Change the game for a different one that's less cpu demanding.
2. Hunt the web for possible microcode fixes or patches that will streamline instruction set usage or otherwise lower the actual demands on the cpu.
3. Upgrade, either to an i7 of that generation (or whichever gen fits the mobo) or upgrade platform to a cpu that can handle the thread/IPC needs with room to spare.

Anything else is a band-aid that'll get ripped to shreds by the next game you try.

I understand, LGA 1155 is an old platform since it took me forever to get a decent motherboard for LGA 1155 that is SLI capable and can overclock. I don't think upgrading to an LGA 1155 i7 for example i7 2600k as it's 3x morrxpensive than i5 2500k and they're almost the same, from doing some research, I also found that i5 2500k is way more OC happy than i7 2600k. I managed to hit 5Ghz on my i5 2500k and being very stable but downclocked it to 4.7Ghz to make sure I don't get a random crash in a month's time.

I plan to upgrade to LGA 1151 which I'm saving up for, I just don't want get any random M/B, I'm looking for a good deal on a DDR4, M.2 and SLI capable M/B and probably going to go with an i5 6500 or 6600k, I don't want to spend on a M/B that I'm not happy with and then spend more money to upgrade it in the future. Took me forever to find my MSI p67a-gd55 (b3) M/B for my i5 2500k that is overclockable and SLI capable since "gaming" motherboards for LGA 1155 are expensive because they're rare as they don't make them anymore, the only widely available M/B for LGA 1155 here in UK are Sabertooth p67 and I don't really like that M/B, until I upgrade, I'm trying to enjoy the i5 2500k.

 

[Karadjgne]

Sli is iffy. Older games had much better support there, not so much now. When faced by single gpus running DX12 that cost upwards of $1k and get fps minimums that far exceed monitor refresh, the cost of sli far exceeds any tangible benefits. CF is even worse. So ppl aren't using it, especially with 4k as that takes mega amounts of vram and sli doesn't add, it shares. In most games a single rtx2060 will blow the doors off sli 970's, based solely on available vram needs.

Sandy-Bridge is one thing, Ivy-Bridge is different. That brought in a 10+% bump in IPC, which is important. Clock for clock, even limited to 4 threads, your 2500 won't get the fps my 3770k will. Both lga1155. And I've got 4 extra threads to play with. You can get used 3770k for less than $100, mine was $50 6years ago on ebay. The difference being, my pc will sell for more, I'll get that money back, most ppl wanting to game are not looking at quad core cpus. So that too is iffy. At worst, you'd loose out on a few $, at best you'd make a few $. You'd only really loose out if you scrapped everything.

It's just options, something to think about. There's no saying what your future build will be like, too many changes.

 

[Xenone]

Sli is iffy. Older games had much better support there, not so much now. When faced by single gpus running DX12 that cost upwards of $1k and get fps minimums that far exceed monitor refresh, the cost of sli far exceeds any tangible benefits. CF is even worse. So ppl aren't using it, especially with 4k as that takes mega amounts of vram and sli doesn't add, it shares. In most games a single rtx2060 will blow the doors off sli 970's, based solely on available vram needs.

Sandy-Bridge is one thing, Ivy-Bridge is different. That brought in a 10+% bump in IPC, which is important. Clock for clock, even limited to 4 threads, your 2500 won't get the fps my 3770k will. Both lga1155. And I've got 4 extra threads to play with. You can get used 3770k for less than $100, mine was $50 6years ago on ebay. The difference being, my pc will sell for more, I'll get that money back, most ppl wanting to game are not looking at quad core cpus. So that too is iffy. At worst, you'd loose out on a few $, at best you'd make a few $. You'd only really loose out if you scrapped everything.

It's just options, something to think about. There's no saying what your future build will be like, too many changes.

The only reason why I want SLI is because I have a GTX 970 4GB that I use in my rig and other one that I use as an eGPU for my laptop, when I don't use my laptop, I normally take out the GTX 970 from the dock and use it in my PC in SLI to give me slight FPS boost in some games, instead of my eGPU sitting there, collecting dust, I might aswell use it.

Looking on Ebay, here in UK, 3770k and 6600k go for the same price, they're basically the same except 3770k having 4 more threads, hyper-threading and bigger cache by 2MB, would the 3770k be faster just for that reason or would they be the same since 6600k is newer, supports faster RAM speeds and DDR4 instead of 3? There's also the upgradability, I will be basically stuck at 3770k unless I upgrade RAM and M/B while with LGA 1151 and 6600k, I can upgrade as high as i9 9900k.

 

[truegenius]

windows is messing with the limited resources you have left. try setting higher priority for that game in taskbar, this way windows won't freeze your game by running stupid stuff in background with same priority

 

[Karadjgne]

There's 2 versions of lga1151 and they aren't compatible electrically. There's the original release which is good for skylake and kabylake, gen6 and gen7, then there's lga1151v2 which is for CoffeeLake and it's Refresh, gen8 and gen9.

So the best upgrade from a 6600k would be a 7700k, which isn't much at all of an upgrade for the price.

Skylake are stuck at 2133MHz ram unless you get a Z170, and even those have issues with power delivery, you'd be better off skipping that gen and going kabylake, Z270 from the start, which is starting at 2400MHz on the memory controller. Although either is a better buy than the i7-3770k.

Just opt for any i7. Do not settle for pre-coffeelake i5 or you'll still be fighting the same quad core, quad thread battle. You'll have 10-15 more fps, yet the same freezes, same lag, same stutters, same fps in the toilet in anything that requires 4 thread minimum, 8thread optimized. Which is most newer games.
I5-8400 vs i5-6600k
Even 2 more cores makes a sizable difference, the only advantage being you might get a few more fps from OC on the 6600k.

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